Shustar New Town

Shushtar New Town, designed by Kamran Diba, is one of the most well-known housing projects in contemporary Iranian architecture. Located close to the ancient city of Shushtar in the southwest of Iran, it follows the traditional urban pattern of Iranian cities with an interwoven urban fabric and (mud)brick as construction material. Construction started in 1976 and most of the first phase, which was planned to function as an autonomous unit and to accommodate about 4,200 inhabitants, was completed in 1978. While Shustar New Town was intended to house 30,000 workers of the Karun Agro Industry, due to the Islamic revolution of 1979 the project was not completely implemented and only another small part of it was constructed between 1980 and 1985…